The VII International Conference on Language Teacher Education will take place in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 19–21, 2011. The mission of the conference is to address the education of teachers of all languages, at all instructional and institutional levels, and in all the many national and international contexts in which this takes place, including: English as a Second or Foreign Language
(ESL/EFL) instruction; foreign/modern/world language teaching; bilingual education; immersion education; indigenous and minority language education; and the teaching of less commonly taught languages. The conference aims to bring together teacher educators from these many contexts to discuss and share research, theory, and best practices and to initiate and sustain meaningful professional dialogue across languages, levels, and settings. The conference will focus on the following four broad themes: The Knowledge Base of Language Teacher Education; Social, Cultural, and Political Contexts of Language Teacher Education; Collaborations in Language Teacher Education; and Processes of Language Teacher Education.
Featured Plenary Presentations & Speakers: Heather Willis Allen Assistant Professor, University of Miami “Educating the Future Foreign Language Professoriate in 2011”; Beatrice Dupuy Associate Professor, University of Arizona “When Language Teacher Educators, Language Policy Makers, and Politicians Meet: Lessons from the South”; Adriana González Moncada Associate Professor, Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia “Identity and Agency in Language Teacher Education: Issues and Practices”; Brian Morgan Associate Professor, York University, Canada “The Yin and Yang of Immersion Teacher Development”; Diane J. Tedick Associate Professor, University of Minnesota Tara Williams Fortune Immersion Projects Coordinator, Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition Sessions & Pre-conference Workshops.
The conference program will include over 100 papers, symposia, and discussion sessions on language teacher education from a wide range of contexts and perspectives.
The program also includes an extensive line-up of morning and afternoon pre-conference workshops including: Program Evaluation for Language Instructors; A Long-Term Approach to Foreign Language TA Development; Language Immersion Education: Is it Really Any Different?; Preparing Teachers to Understand and Act Critically Upon Language Policies; Infusing Technology into Language Teacher Education; Professional Development for Teaching Adult Emergent Readers; Exploring New Directions in the Preparation of Beginning Foreign Language Teachers; Critical Multiliteracies: Engaging Identities in L2 Classrooms; Exploring Learner Language in Language Teacher Education; Preparing Leaders in the Arabic Language Teaching Community; Culture as the Core in Chinese Teacher Education; and Technology Options for Foreign Language Teachers. Early registration deadline is April 1, 2011.
